Digital government: the impact of digitalisation on citizens' well-being

Digital government is increasingly a top priority for nations globally as they navigate the pace of change and technological advancements. That was reflected at the eighth edition of the World Government Summit in Dubai.

The event, which hosts high ranking government officials from over 140 countries, had an agenda focused on shaping a better future.

At the summit, a key theme was the purpose of digitalisation in and not just from a government perspective but also in terms of offering citizens access to more streamlined and effective services.

Mohammed Bin Taliah is the Chief of Government Services of the UAE Government and says technology has been enabling humanity for some time.

“With technology, we can augment user effort and allow technology to do things on behalf of the customer. We are trying to bundle services, make them simple, reduce the steps on customers, make sure that they get what they want in a much shorter time.”

In the UAE Digital Government Strategy 2025, there are clearly defined KPIs (key performance indicators) with ambitious targets such as having 100 percent of services digitised by 2023.

Mohammed Bin Taliah, Chief of Government Services of the UAE Government explained that the next step is a concept called proactive services where they can anticipate users' needs.

“We are using AI to enable services to be delivered on behalf of the customers without them requesting it. So with customer journeys and with us knowing about the customer needs and their persona, we can predict what they want and deliver services before they ask for it.”

The term invisible technology is becoming increasingly popular in the digital sphere.

The UAE Minister for Artificial Intelligence Omar Al Olama said this means we should not